Incredibly patronising. I thought the Somalia experience was bad; this might be worse.

I haven’t been treated too badly today, but I suppose it’s one thing being old in the upmarket borough of Kensington. What’s it like to be old on a bleak housing estate, or in a care home?

Oh my conscience!

What she seems to admire about old people is how they put on a brave face. Bless them. The single change that would most improve pensioners' lives is a humane pensions policy. But that suggestion is too political for this Right Minds columnist.

Interestingly, the Times tried this recently - dress and make up a journo to look old and see how they find life. A number of readers wrote in to point out that it might be better (and less patronising, and cheaper etc) to just ask a few older readers how their lives were.

They pointed out that in these stunts (because that's what they are), the journo always assumes the persona of a doddering, poor, slightly senile meek little mouse - in other words a stereotype (right down to the Dot Cotton duds) that's pretty out of date. Older people are just as mixed a bag as any other section of society, and these articles just confirm the suspicion that London media types despise (and feel the need to label) everyone outside their immediate bubble.

I agree with John the New, that the Times is an occasinal ray of sanity in the right-leaning media.

Given that they know full well they won't get anything worthwhile out of her from this experiment, perhaps their. ain reason for picking her to do it was for their own amusement? Getting back at her for all her surgery and vanity?